How do you think the future of Tech will affect us socially?

Genetically farmed replacement humans, bio-tissue enhancement, personality download, sperm & egg marketing, customized children. These, and many, many more technological advancements are possibly on our horizon (all of my examples are related to genetically enhanced humans - but please offer more examples if you have them - related directly to 'human' or not). Here are some suggested questions to consider, but by no means the only ones: What will be the social ramifications of such development? How will we define what it means to be human? Have 'rights'? What is 'ownership'? What is 'a product'? Who is liable? My main reference points were The World Future Society and Peter Diamandis. As we struggle with the ancient problems of equality in goods distribution, exploitation, and cultural differences, how will such advances in tech either compound our considerations or help 'pave the way' towards more enlightened humanity? These are just suggested points to consider regarding the future impact of tech enhancement on us as people and society. Let your real opinions wander...

Jun 20 2013:
Thanks for the compelling argument. I am somewhat familiar with this point of view. Steven Spielberg even did a movie called 'AI' with the same premise - where we replace ourselves with 'superior tech' versions and are extinct. I then reflect back to our previous 'visions of the future'. How well did our 'HG Wells' vision compare with the resulting development? I would say that much of the development was unpredictable. Therefore I would hope that our current 'social' technology and our 'psychology of survival' will develop in ways currently unforeseen too. Thanks again.

Jun 20 2013:
You have a point. If someone as ordinary like me can appreciate Juan's argument, it is highly probable that it will also be noticed by technological gurus. In fact I have a feeling that reverse engineering is taking us more towards a biological model than a machinist one. This coupled with innovations in the field of extreme energy efficiency and decentralized generation of power may help us avoid the cyborg doom. Or at lest it will not be as grim as I think.

Jun 20 2013:
or, you and Juan could be right. In the early part of the last century there were worldwide protests against capitalistic greed - Marxism and socialism followed. Before that aristocratic greed. Since then we had the 60's with capitalistic combined with military greed. Now were concerned with technological greed under the umbrella of capitalistic/military greed. Is there a common human thread here?

Jun 20 2013:
I counted at least 4 references of greed in your comment :) So there is not much left for imagination about the common thread. Human mind works in weird ways, RH. When I was young, I got a fat amount of money from my employer on account of pay revision and I was being very happy about it. A senior colleague called me to side and said, 'Why are you so excited? Everybody got that, right? You can only jump with joy when you get a fat sum of money and nobody else gets it.'

Jun 14 2013:
It has de-personalized communications between humans and will continue to do so. This will change the way we communicate. The emotions, passion, tone, and gestures associated with a face-to-face communication will be replaced by more articulate written correspondences. There will be an increased dependency on providers of communications services. The struggle to develop a relationship that might lead to marriage will take longer, the point at which couples are ready to have children will continue to be later in life, and consequently I expect the population to decrease and the physical problems with having children later in life to increase.

Added to the decisions about what mate to select will be your ability to agree on how to customize your children, given the option to do so. Whose side of the family should be favored with feature selection? Heck, just gender! These choices will create many problems for people who want to control everything. Then there is the psychological ramifications on both off-spring and parents associated with making a choice that is later proved to be wrong, or at least poor, and second guessed by everyone including the off-spring. Having nature remove the burden of responsibility associated with making these choices might be something that lets you sleep at night as a parent.

Jun 14 2013:
Very interesting viewpoint. Thanks. So, you see: a) communication to be 'de-personalized', and and those tasks to be taken over by providers, b) that 'custom designing' children will breed (ahem) multiple ramifications long term, and c) investment opportunity. For a), Our interactions would then become 'professionalized', wouldn't they. I can see it now: "Hello, InterTalk? please tell my significant other that I feel like Italian tonight, not Thai for dinner." InterTalk: "Hello Pat, research has shown that... and therefore tonight Chris prefers Italian." I think I overheard my neighbors having a similar conversation. b) But I'm very interested in your comments on customized children. Using 'predictive analysis' to procreate. In our intentional altering of the very structure of the child, what are we truly creating? Furthermore, at what point in the child's development can we say that we are dissatisfied with the outcome? Now we have abortion. Possibly children will be born in a lab. If, since we 'contracted' for these services we cannot terminate, then who is liable for the child in the event the 'parents' win the court case and refuse delivery? c) I would invest in the stock of corporate collective of psychiatrists. I'm sure a 'least cost/high return' formula would be most attractive: "Honey, did you make your appointment at psych-mart yet?" Please don't take me the wrong way Robert, I'm not trying to make light of your comments - not at all. It's just sometimes I feel we're being 'sold the latest and greatest' and that these new 'products' are not just trinkets anymore, and that our current social models may no longer be adequate. Thanks again.

Jun 14 2013:
Thanks Michael for responding, but what those authors think (or 'thought') are in the public domain (I'm familiar with their works), and if they would like to update their opinion they're welcome to respond (although one is dead). I would like to know what you think - if you should be so inclined to offer an opinion.

Jun 13 2013:
Hi W and thanks for responding. I will ask you for some clarification. I understand your first sentence, but got lost after. Please explain how you view 'symbiosis' equals morality, and why no symbiosis or morality will be 'needed for our survival' because of tech development.

8. Morality, Ethics and Justice
(Rules for Symbiosis)
Morality, ethics, and justice are the rules kept in human DNA for all kinds of symbiosis in order to keep human behaviors in the right way for keeping their DNA alive.
All of them are human instincts or our ancestors’ successful experiences formed about 10,000 years ago and saved in our DNA.
Today, we have the problem of the validity of these instincts because we are in the present new conditions that are too much different from those in about 10,000 years ago.
Especially, our happiness is invalid when it is out of the valid scope set about 10,000 years ago by our ancestors.
For examples, there are the cases in the story of a railway switchman, the story of a surgeon with his six patients, and today’s global CO2 emission problem caused mainly by developed countries and so on.
...”

Jun 15 2013:
Ok. So if I understand you correctly, our interactions with one another result in a 'symbiotic' effect upon each other - a mutual exchange. Also, we are little changed in this symbiotic result since 10k years ago, and this symbiotic result also has created our morality, ethics and justice requirements. As tech advances, we will no longer need the support of this symbiosis because it will have been replaced by tech data. Is that about right? If so, then we will have little need for each other. Then, what follows for me is that our innate tendency is not that we are to become a 'homogeneous' group called humanity, but a group of competing individuals to survive, with less and less need to compromise. What's your take on that?

Jun 13 2013:
Tech is so much more than biology It has in many ways and there are many kinds of feedback. Then maybe you are talking about the movie Galataca (sp?) I enjoyed it although some of it was dark it ended in an uplifting way.

Jun 13 2013:
Hi george and thanks for responding. No, I wasn't referring to any movie. What I'm trying to get at is our tech seems to be on the brink of revealing social considerations we've never had to face before, and I'm wondering what people think of such considerations. I used genetic enhancement examples, but as you say, there are many other types of tech that will be affecting us and will impact us socially in new ways.